Senators Attempt To Defund Justice Ex Post Facto

This article relates to prosecutions of terrorists. Our question: why is this violation of Ex Post Facto getting more attention than is the similar Ex Post Facto violation related to sex offender registries via the Adam Walsh Act?

In a piece of legislation that has been written and is currently under consideration by the United States Senate, Senators Lindsey Graham, Joseph Lieberman and John McCain have promoted S.Amdt. 2669 to H.R. 2847, the Defunding Justice Amendment, which would forbid the Executive Branch from using courts established under the Constitution to prosecute criminal suspects accused of being connected to just one particular set of crimes. The amendment declares that no government funds can be used to conduct trials of suspects accused of connection to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

You may not like the people accused of participation in the September 11, 2001 attacks (nor sex offenses) . Given what I know about them, I’m not fond of them myself.

In a free country, however, such prejudice is not supposed to be allowed to interfere with the conduct of any criminal trial, no matter how serious the charges. The Defunding Justice Amendment violates a fundamental aspect of the Constitution’s system of fair trials: The ban on ex post facto laws.

Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution forbids ex post facto laws, meaning that Congress is not allowed to pass laws that change the rules of the law regarding an event after the event has taken place. That means that a legal act cannot retroactively be declared illegal, but it also means that the system of prosecution and punishment for a criminal act cannot be altered after the criminal act has taken place.

Disregard of that fundamental principle of American justice is not just unfair. It is downright unpatriotic. that declares that anyone accused of the particular criminal event you’re alleged to be involved in would be put through a specially-established set of tribunals that don’t comply with constitutional standards of justice.